Is the Chancellor about to crash the economy?

[Startingagainandagain]

I will start by saying I voted Labour, but I am increasingly concerned about what the government has done so far.

Today there are warning that food prices could shoot up, the pound is going down, there were big jitters on the bonds market and government borrowing is higher than planned.

More generally Reeves seems to have spooked businesses and they have no will to expand or employ more people.

I agreed that the Tories left a total mess.

But Labour seems to just go from bad to worse and I am really starting to wish she could be replaced by someone more competent to restore some confidence.

Tories blamed labour for their chaos for 14 years. I think Labour deserve more than 8 months to try and improve things before being written off. Things were worse than they expected when they took over as well.
I've not noticed interest rates shooting up yet like they did when Truss/Kwarteng did their damage.
It's not a great situation but at least they are trying to improve public services rather than pretending that you can keep cutting them and not completely mess up the country.

On the first point, both parties have said that. Brown/Blair spent 12 years blaming Thatcher!

On the last point, Reeves has virtually admitted that public spending will be cut because she's ruled out tax rises or increased borrowings - there are no other options! Miliband also admitted austerity would be imposed when he was Labour leader over a decade ago.

There is no magic bullet. Most Western economies are stuffed! We're looking at managed decline of Britain and several other previously major Western economies.

So far Labour have managed to alienate business owners, farmers and pensioners and this is supposed to be the honeymoon period!

Careful, that champion of free speech is threatening to sue people who say that!

Reeves is sending the country to bankruptcy. Inflation was creeping lower under the tories and now it's going higher again . The government are planning growth but with what , more borrowing , higher debt repayments, the markets are spooked .
Employers are not taking on or replacing leavers . Businesses are not investing . House building won't happen anything like they're suggesting .
The very worst thing is their complete indifference to the rape gang scandals and why could that be , very probably because starmer will be implicated . He chose not to prosecute most cases as the children would not make credible witnesses , presumably because they were working class , uneducated, poor communication skills etc .
Everyone liberal who voted labour is responsible for this imploding mess of a government.

This, in spades ^

You do realise that UK economics don't operate in a void don't you.

Do you really think the Tories will wave a magic wand and put it all right? They had umpteen years to do it and didn't and couldn't do it now even if they wanted (which they don't as they have Labour doing their scut work for them).

I voted Labour and don’t think Reeves has what it takes. I knew that as soon as she focused on VAT for schools and winter fuel allowance in a borderline obsessed way that she wasn’t a strategic thinker.

Funnily enough I think although Liz Truss is bonkers, her a Kwazi Kwarteng had a strategy which could have worked had they executed it properly. They were right in thinking we need a bold and ambitious plan, not tinkering around the edges. If they had done proper stakeholder engagement, they wouldn’t have spooked the market. We could have been seeing the fruits now.

@Coolasfeck you are absolutely right but the trouble is half her party didn't support her as they are closet liberals brought in by Cameron as she has said. And the establishment basically got rid of her as they don't want a small state, low spending etc. Some people think this is about trashing the economy on purpose so we can have a one world govt (eg wef) I have got to the stage where I think anything is possible after the last few years.

Some people think this is about trashing the economy on purpose

Kwasi Kwarteng was drinking champagne with the hedge fund managers that made a massive profit out of the disastrous mini budget, just as the crash happened…

Go figure

news.sky.com/story/kwasi-kwarteng-faces-calls-for-inquiry-after-attending-champagne-do-with-hedge-fund-managers-hours-after-delivering-mini-budget-12710039

Thanks for sharing that video. It was a very interesting watch.

I’m not RRs biggest fan but in her defence this is not a localised issue. It is worse here but things are looking bad all over. Bond prices for the US, Germany etc at all increasing too.

I will get a lot of hate here for saying this but going forward, the reality is that the uk has a tax system that disproportionately taxes the highest earners more than other countries do. This creates an economy where we rely on them more than other countries. Probably as a result of high taxes, these people are leaving in droves and for anyone saying good riddance, you really do need them. Only China lost more millionaires than the UK last year, and their population is like a billion people - per capita the UK was by far the highest looser of wealthy folks.

For example, someone on 200k pays 8x more tax than someone on 50k despite earning 4x as much. Thats quite an aggressive increase. The tax system is also so lumpy that at certain salaries it feels totally unfair, 100-125 is ridiculous with >60% marginal tax plus losing all childcare benefits so it can actually end up more than 100% where you have to put it all into your pension or end up poorer than if you earned 99k.

The top rate of tax in the U.S. (37%) doesn’t kick in until you are earning over $600k!

My husbands employer recently opened an Abu Dhabi office and gave an open invite to any staff who wanted to move there. Loads did (we didn’t) for the 0% income tax. Rent is high but it’s just as high in London 🤷‍♀️

The real world outside of your public sector echo chamber.

Bet you can't find the traffic lights in a set of nine boxes.

Working class people - MN do investigate trolls and bots, feel free to report posts you don’t think are genuine.

Cant you imagine a situation where the ordinary person is worried about their job security, future mortgage payments!? The economy is insane right now.

I feel absolutely relieved that we changed government from the Conservatives who put up our mortgages hundreds of pounds a month and allowed my energy bill to rise from £175 a month to over £400 s month in the space of 18 months. I've never known any government so.utterly corrupt, incompetent and such an utter shambles with the economy.

£400 per month energy bill? Have you tried closing a window?

We run the heating 24x7 and pay £75 p/m for gas including the standing charge.

How many of the 40 hospitals promised did Boris build?

Why are people waiting 50 hours in A&E right now?

Why are a fifth of 15 year olds absent from school?

Why are there millions of families in poverty?

Why are millions of people on waiting lists for surgery and unable to work?

Why do nurses have to go to food banks?

Why did legal net migration increase exponentially under Rishi Sunak in 2021 to the biggest number of immigrants we have ever had in history? Wow - we really took back our borders. So worth it for blue passports and all businesses buried under totally unnecessary red tape.

Why don't you take your head out of your arse and ask yourself who has crashed this country since 2010.

How long do you think it would take any government to remedy 14 years of tanking the economy and ideological destruction of public services in the name of greed and self interest?

Could you not be more facile? Do try harder.

Who represents the working classes best then?

An investment bank trader who is prepared to gamble away the country like Nigel Farage?

For 2 days , when it recovered. It’s a BBC myth that she crashed the economy for any longer than that.

She's awful, not sure how she couldn't see that this will have a hideous impact on low wage jobs pushing up the benefits bill and probably raising very little net. She claimed to be an economist but at HBOS worked in customer complaints, she's going to get a lot of complaints at the next election at this rate.

Rachel Reeves has not put any income taxes up for high earners whatsoever.

The Tories created the biggest income tax grab ever by not raising tax thresholds proportionately.

Loads of countries pay far more tax than we do in the UK and have far better state pensions and public services across the board.

Nonsense. That is just so offensively incorrect.